Bruised In A New Place

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling...that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place." - Washington Irving

The season has begun to change, and just in the nick of time for this ol' coach/runner. Tampa winters, all 14 of them, I could tolerate; there might (or might not!) be a week of nasty cold weather around the turn of the year, and February could have its moments here and there. But February is a short month and we could always look with longing to nice conditions in March.

Pensacola, on the other hand, has been a completely different story. How could a city which was more northerly be more hot, more humid and more...well...blah, during the summer? And, to top that all off, predictable in its climatic unpredictability in those months which possess an "R"?

It has been nice to get back on the streets, even if it's for twenty minutes at a time right now. I did go for a sixty-minute walk yesterday morning while my wife ran on the same course. I marveled at the blooms and buds, shoots and flowers which began to make their presence known as I strolled past some of the front yards in the neighborhood just a half mile from my home. It began to make me think life was going to be all right.

Then, I remembered it was the last days of February. March was not far behind.

March, here in the "Redneck Riviera," does not enter or depart like either a lion or a lamb. It's like a - lab - as in labrador retreiver. Smart enough to figure out how you're going to react, friendly enough while you're around, but if you fail to keep an eye on them then say farewell to those really nice shoes you just got on sale. March here doesn't go in one way and out in another...it comes in, makes a mess, then asks you (while you're comfortable in front of the tube)to let it back out. Ah, but we love it and wouldn't want it any other way. Especially the weekend around St. Patrick's Day, when we have the largest 5,000-meter prediction run in the country.

My wife and I went to brunch the other morning, after our morning efforts, with one of our closest friends, Charley and Sheila. We marveled at the conditions and wondered whether they would persist until the first week of May, when our summertime conditions show in full force. I then said, "Don't get too excited about this nice weather, because you know it's all going to hit the fan during the weekend of McGuire's. It will either be fantastic on the day and horrible immediately after, or it will be really nasty cold." Charley then laughed at the fact I would remember years past and the temperature tendencies; 80 degrees one day, 35 the next.

Forecast schizophrenia.

To plan for the McGuire's 5K, we pull out the racing attire we want to wear, the stuff we were forced to wear at the '07 Crescent City Classic, and then the oldest running gear we have, on which we won't mind having nasty green beer poured or spilled by someone else. Place all those items in a laundry basket (or "the bag" I wrote about a couple of weeks ago), shake them up and pluck out the first items which keep us from being busted for indecent exposure.

But getting back to the blooms, the weather and all...I started to think about what was going to happen to those pretty buds, blossoms and flowers which were starting to spring and would be meteorologically-blindsided by the middle of the month. They probably reacted to something in nature in the way plants react when everything seems to be all right. I looked at each of those gorgeous blooming trees and all I could think was: 'you fool, you fool...'

Those trees and I had a lot in common last Monday morning, after I did 4.5 miles, the first lick of running after three weeks without a step. Everything reverted back to something like normal. And then, reality set in around Tuesday evening. That chunk of running was a shock to my system, one which left me hobbling for the remainder of the week. Not only were there muscles I hadn't offended in a long time which were now very upset at me, but they took their cues from the unhappy people in Egypt; if protest could topple a 40-year rule, it certainly could hobble a (nearly) 50-year-old man. Every step going down stairwells at work caused my legs to fire uncontrollably. There were moments where my leg buckled as I was teaching my seminar late in the week. I hadn't felt this bad since my marathon walk-of-shame in 2007.

I had, as the Irving quote above suggests, felt the relief of change; the transition from sidelined runner to slow runner. Naturally, the bruises and discomfort had come, not so much in new places, but in places common to new runners. Nothing that time, patience, self-massage, hydration and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories could not alleviate.

Ah, the ache of being a born-again runner.

End Of The (Summer) World As We Know It

My dog, Rubin, is a little more subtle. But not by much. I've talked about how I've learned to be an athlete by observing him; run when you feel good, sleep when you can, eat when you're hungry, and always be on the lookout for someone who's willing to rub your back. Lately, he and I have been much alike; he's recovering from some strange chip fracture in his heel bone. The veterinarian and I are uncertain as to the root cause, which could have been anything from a bump in the bedroom to a bad step in the back yard. So, now he's on a daily course of an anti-inflammatory much like Celebrex and getting gentle walks in the park on a near-daily basis...mostly in the grass, if I have my way about it. Suzanne was always good about having him in the grass beforehand, so I was the one who had to adjust my surface of choice. Lately he seems to be getting better, but I think it's going to be quite some time before he's one-hundred percent.
Maybe autumn is the end of the world for persons living in areas further north than Ft. Walton Beach, FL, but for those of us who live (sometimes fearfully) in the FL panhandle, the end of September marks the beginning of a more comfortable time of year. Okay, so there are persons here who will dress up like Nanook of the freakin' North once the mercury dips below 60 degrees. I'm not one of them, thank you. Yes, I own tights and long-sleeved tops, and use them on training sessions. But getting temperatures that are closer to 80 degrees than 90 means I can get my longer runs in outside.

I didn't do anything last night at the track because I did a little too much the previous evening out at the beach. I had the chance to run for an extended period in the afternoon, doing a tempo run of nearly eight miles in a little under 50 minutes. A little faster than I needed to be going, but boy, did it feel good for the first five or six. The hot spot on my left heel from the thin socks and the lightweight trainer wasn't so good; I had a blood blister the size of a half dollar coin that made wearing street shoes at work and running last night's workout out of the question. No problem. It was time to play coach for a workout...something I don't do as often as I'd like for the team.

The boss is back in the office today, fresh from her trip north to brief out the project we were in the middle of for the past two months. No new revelations for them, but a lot of data to support their suspicions. And now, one of the organizations involved in the analysis is complaining, stating the data is wrong. Wait a minute, fellas. You're the ones who developed the reporting tools and the spreadsheet.

It's final performance appraisal time for this year. Since the mid-term appraisal was all right (I'm considered a valued employee, just like everyone else who's not in management) and there's nothing additional I can put in the write-up that hasn't been said up to the past two or three months, I just sent the same write-up to the boss. She won't whack it any lower, and the pay pool is still going to give me the minimal pay increase all the other valued employees are going to receive. It's the next worst thing to communism; at least my possessions are mine.

I've got my more subdued Hawaiian-style shirt on this morning. Ties are definitely out of the question, since I don't do a lot of briefings. Once the temperature drops, I'll move to what I like to call my winter uniform: collared shirts with sweater/vests or sweatshirts. I probably need to make a road trip to my alma mater in order to get a couple more sweatshirts; think I gave the last one to my mother a few years ago.

I used to get the advice from my mentor, telling me to wear the same kind of attire I saw the incumbent whose job I wanted was wearing. Well, around here, it's flowery Hawaiian stuff. Go figure.